


Sweet Taste of Death

by Solitaire_Dreams



Series: The Support Series (FE3H) [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: A take on what their support would be like, And with sweets, Can be taken as platonic or romantic like most canon supports, Despite ship teasing, F/M, Since we don't have a canon one, Starts off intense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-25 19:33:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21361531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitaire_Dreams/pseuds/Solitaire_Dreams
Summary: The Social Links--I mean supports--between Jeritza (the Death Knight) and Lysithea.All Lysithea wants to do is get a late night snack when she ends up running into a insufferable foe turned ally. Is their relationship fated to remain bitter to the very end?
Relationships: Jeritza von Hyrm & Lysithea von Ordelia, Jeritza von Hyrm/Lysithea von Ordelia
Series: The Support Series (FE3H) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539997
Comments: 8
Kudos: 63





	1. C-Rank

Under the cover of nightfall, a silhouette crept around. Its white features glowed as it wandered towards the abandoned dining hall.

It was not a ghost—good thing or the figure would have leaped out of their skin—but the tiny destructive sorceress called Lysithea.

She tiptoed into the back of the kitchen and reached up towards a cupboard the kitchen staff hadn't used in years; even when the staff changed to Imperial Cooks after the war began. She gently threw the cupboard open and—

“What?” she quietly exclaimed.

It was completely bare.

“Where could it have gone?” She turned around to look, in the event her item jumped out of the cupboard like a jellybean.

“Who could have taken it?” she murmured, walking out into the dining hall, still empty as it should be this late at night. “One of the cooks? Oh, I hope they didn't find it.” She frantically began to turn around again, starting to panic. “A rat, maybe? At this rate I hope it was a—”

She paused abruptly, catching sight of a figure sitting outside of the open doorway; their back turned towards the courtyard. “Huh?” Her heartbeat skipped for a minute, afraid she had encountered a spirit, but quickly settled as she recognized who it was.

She stormed out the doorway to confront the person.

“It really was a rat.” Lysithea finished under her breath as she saw Jeritza—otherwise known as the Death Knight—sitting in the moonlight with his mask off and eating from a pile of colourful candies. Jeritza heard the muffled voice, and turned around to see a fuming Lysithea. If he was surprised she was here he didn't show it.

“What are you doing eating that candy?!” Lysithea demanded.

“It's nightfall,” Jeritza calmly responded. “I shouldn't be bothering anyone by eating peacefully.” He turned away and popped another candy into his mouth.

“That was my candy!!”

“Was there a reservation with your name on it?”

This only served to make Lysithea even angrier, to the point it looked like steam would begin to pour out of her ears.

“Or did everyone else know that it was yours, and I was out of the loop?”

That defused the ticking time bomb that was Lysithea, as panic once again began to wash over her features.

“Uh...No point in asking about it now.” she awkwardly and curtly said as Jeritza continued to munch on the sweets. After a long pause she continued, “Maybe you would have known if you spent time with other people, Death Knight.”

Her words, laced with acid, finally got Jeritza to pause in his snack and turn back to face her.

“I am not the Death Knight right now.” he simply stated in his calm voice.

“Just because you're not wearing that edgy black armour doesn't mean you're no longer him.”

Jeritza's face began to sour.

“The Death Knight is merely a person, a moniker when I adopt that mask to hide who I really am. He is merely but a devilish spirit—”

Lysithea cut him off. “You're lying to me. All of those atrocities you've committed—kidnapping Flayn to take her blood, Remire Village, killing countless people—only the Death Knight could participate in such things.”

“And it has only been the Death Knight behind them. He is a being who only hungers for blood and delights in death. If he was here right now, you would be able to tell.” He popped another candy in his mouth to try and counter the bitter tone on his tongue.

“There's no way I can guarantee that. For all I know, you could be violently plotting to destroy Emperor Edelgard's army. Or fantasizing about my head on a spike.” She shuddered, not noticing how Jeritza's face began to distort. “Even if you really are Jeritza, I'm not able to trust you. Witnessing your body commit so many horrible crimes would have corrupted you!”

She threw out her hand for emphasis, no longer thinking about the threat of waking people up.

Jeritza stood up, his skin gone ghostly pale as he shook with laughter and spoke in a familiar demonic voice: “Saying such things to someone who won't hesitate to kill?" He rose up from his seating position. "You must have a death wish.”

“I knew it,” Lysithea muttered, readying her fighting stance if needed.

“You are correct that _I_ long to fight. That _I_ fantasize about death. All the things that I've done: slaughtering hundreds, starting rebellions, watching torturous experiments unfold...”

Lysithea tensed in fury at his words.

“They've all been to satisfy my own pleasure.” he snarled.

“You were never a true ally.” Lysithea shook her head. “We shouldn't have left you alive,” her voice began to snarl in return. “Once I tell the Professor, you'll be taken far, far, away from here.”

“Foolish girl.” His hand itched at his hilt. “That's only if you make it out of here alive!”

He pulled out his weapon and rushed towards Lysithea. Surprised by his speed, Lysithea hesitated as she debated her options: run to get the Professor or knock him out now. But her hesitation made her too late. There was only one option left.

His demonic laughter was cut off by Lysithea's battle cry as she unleashed a powerful spell. The extreme potency at close range caused everything to go blindingly white, followed by the black of nothingness for both of them.

“Ugh...” Lysithea groaned in pain as she heard hoarse coughing nearby.

Once her eyes began to see again, she slowly pulled herself up to her feet only to stop midway. Her eyes widened as she saw the force of the magic attack had been powerful enough to knock her a few feet back and form a large crater in the courtyard.

“A crater? That attack was more powerful than I anticipated it being.”

She fully got to her feet when she saw Jeritza had also gotten back up. She wondered if she should prepare another attack when he broke the silence.

“I've gone too far.” he murmured in his usual tired voice, his eyes having grown wide. Out of fear of what awaited him if he stayed, he ran off.

“Hey, wait!” Lysithea called out after him, raising a hand.

She sighed, putting her hand back down. “How am I going to explain this to the professor?”


	2. B-Rank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **11/11/19** Updated the chapter. Needed to add a couple of lines to make the A-Support flow more smoothly.

The heat of the sunlight bore down over the courtyard that afternoon, and everyone who had a good head on their shoulders had ducked inside to avoid the sweltering warmth.

That is expect for Lysithea, stuck shovelling heavy mounds of dirt as she wondered whether or not she actually had as a good a head as she thought. Because if she only acted a bit smarter that night and ran to signal the Professor, she wouldn't have blown up the courtyard. And if the courtyard wasn't blown up, there would be no punishment of refilling the crater.

She sighed, and paused to brush her hand across her forehead. “This isn't fair,” She continued to pile up the dirt. “Why do I have to be the one to clean up the courtyard? I'm not that good at carrying heavy items,” She dropped a whole shovel full of dirt. “And it's not my fault! If _he_ hadn't tried to provoke me...”

“I assume you're referring to me?” Jeritza asked, having materialized out of seemingly nowhere.

“You!” Lysithea nearly gasped her words, spinning around to face him.

“Or did somebody else get on your bad side?” he casually inquired as he picked up a spare shovel.

She tensed defensively at his action. “What are you going to do with that shovel?”

“Move the dirt back into the hole. What else do you expect me to do with it?”

She grumbled. She would try to tell the Professor her suspicions about his 'offer' to help, but she knew it wouldn't work. Or else she would be caught in a lie.

“Fine. But if you're going to work, you can do it in silence.”

“Of course.”

True to his word, Jeritza did not utter a single sound as he went about transporting the dirt from the wheelbarrow into the large pit that never seemed to grow more full. Lysithea continued to work at her task, nearly dying from the heat, until the silence stretched well beyond the point of awkwardness.

Finally, the question on the tip of Lysithea's tongue was blurted out: “Why are you here?”

“Hmmm?” Jeritza turned towards her, and she refused to meet his gaze.

“This is my punishment for the explosion that night. The Professor has only punished me, not you. You don't have to be out here today.” she explained.

“On the contrary, I've been assigned this punishment too.”

“What?” Lysithea's eyes widened as she finally paused and turned to face him.

“The Professor knew of my prior nightly outings, and because of your _feelings_ towards the Death Knight, he correctly figured I had a hand to play in the explosion.” he explained.

“Oh,” she blurted in a mix of confusion and realization before continuing, “So, it was the Professor's idea to have us work together.”

“Though I was surprised,” Jeritza began, yearning to bring up his own question, “That I already wasn't punished by the time the Professor approached me and said you were. There was no confirmation I was at the scene after speaking to you.”

“What are you implying?” Lysithea responded annoyed.

“That you didn't rat me out to the Professor.”

After a long pause, she grudgingly admitted: “The Professor has had a history of pairing together people who have trouble working together on tasks. I'd rather just fix everything myself than work with you.”

“The Death Knight's behaviour offended you that much?” Jeritza genuinely asked, watching her sweat and shake.

“It's _the Death Knight_.” Lysithea began fed up, “He has 'death' in his name. That's never a good sign.” She paused as she strained to pull a particularly full shovel of dirt—what was in there? Coal? “But the worst thing is that you still try to act polite, eating candy, never dozing off in war meetings, and not complaining during heavy labour. I still don't get how someone who did such horrible things could act, so... not evil.” She sighed as she let down her pile, nearly dropping her shovel in the pit in the process.

Jeritza himself sighed. He didn't want forgiveness, but he wanted her to understand and to calm a bit of her frustration. “I tried to explain to you that night, but you didn't seem to want to listen. The personality you know as the Death Knight is never always around, he seems to come and go as he pleases. The closest thing I could describe it to is some research I've heard from scholars called 'personality disorder'.” He paused to remove his gloves. “One day I heard news that sent me into an unspeakable fury. One moment I longed only for the man in front of me to cry out in pain and the next he laid on the floor, having bled out to death. I doubt my hands and mind are truly unstained from war, but unlike the mind of that demon I don't long to darken the stains.”

Lysithea looked skeptical, understandably so since this “disorder” was a new finding by experts. He himself had only heard of it 7 years ago from the more intelligent members of Those Who Slither. And that reminded him of something that could help his case.

“If it would further decrease your hatred of me, the Death Knight is not a true member of Those Who Slither in the Dark.” he added, not noticing that Lysithea dropped her shovel with a loud clang.

“You have to be kidding.” she responded in dumbfounded disbelief.

“The Emperor was the one who originally found me after...this being...took over my body. She provided a hunting ground that I could use to temporarily subside the blood lust I felt all these years. Then years later, once I was enrolled at the academy as a teacher, Edelgard approached me and asked for a favour. She needed a strong fighter who was not aligned with any other faction and willing to commit countless executions. Not only was I in her debt, but it could substitute for my old hunting grounds now that I was residing at the academy and had lost my outlet for destruction.”

“So,” Lysithea began, a mix of skepticism and surprise colouring her face, “You never participated in anything that the Flame Emperor didn't approve of?”

“Precisely,” he responded, glancing towards her forgotten shovel. She picked it up once she followed his gaze, and continued her efforts to fill the hole. “I didn't have a hand in any of their crest experiments, do not worry.”

Once again she dropped her shovel. “Why would I worry about that?” She tried to shrug off his statement unconvincingly with a strange shoulder twitch.

“You listed Remire Village and Flayn's kidnapping as two of your points you were upset about that night. So, I figured that the experimentation was one of your big concerns. I remember that much,” he muttered the last line under his breath.

“The Flame Emperor made me promise to never be directly involved in the testing, only act as a carrier if my hand was forced. Additionally, the Death Knight prefers to kill all he tortures, never leaving his victims alive to enact revenge.”

_I'm still alive, despite me despising him, _Lysithea realized the unspoken words. She couldn't help but wonder what that meant.

“What will you do after the war is over?” she quietly asked, not even realizing she said the words until they were out.

Jeritza's face widened in surprise. “I don't know." He stabbed his shovel into the dirt. "Only the Death Knight does.”

They worked the rest of the afternoon in silence, lost in their own thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be up a little earlier, but at least I know what my writing friends feel like when they can't post new chapters for weeks on end. At least it hasn't been that long.
> 
> See you for the A-Support sometime within a week!


	3. A-Rank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note for old readers--if you read Ch 2 on the day it came out, I edited it. You don't have to reread it, but I've bolded the added passage if you want to check it out.

A few nights later, Jeritza was once again bathed in the completely darkness of a moonless night. Well, he would have been, if it wasn't for the lantern on the dining hall table that cast a warm and eerie glow across his face. And illuminated his pile of assorted sugary delights.

As he set down his dessert, he cautiously spoke. “You truly have good taste for gourmet sweets, but I must ask Lysithea,” Her face stiffened slightly as she sat across the table from him, the shadows across her face shifting. “Why did you invite me to eat with you?”

“You should be eating.” Lysithea quickly instructed. “Your pastry is going to become cold.”

“Lysithea.” Jeritza was not going to deal with her combative attitude tonight. He was confused all day when she quickly told him to come to the dining hall tonight—alone, and even more so when he saw a lantern-lit table decked out with assorted sweets, as if he was...a companion. “I neglected to tell you earlier since you already seemed determined enough to stay away from me. But it's not good to be around me. The Death Knight is indiscriminate towards his victims.”

“If you try anything, I will unleash a magical spell so powerful you will be launched straight through the window.” she bluntly threatened.

“So,” he began relieved, “You do still hate me.”

He began to munch on his dessert, content with the silence, until Lysithea spoke two words that made him stop in his tracks: “Not exactly.”

He set down his dessert while she took a deep breath and continued, “I hate the Death Knight. And you said yourself that you're not him.”

“What's with the sudden change of attitude?” Jeritza bewilderingly questioned, “...Have you been possessed by—”

“No!” Lysithea exclaimed, pointing her utensil at him. “No possession! No spirits!”

Upon realizing how intense she must have appeared to Jeritza, she set down her fork. “You know,” she began sombrely, “Don't you?”

“Pardon?”

“Don't play coy with me. You have to know what I'm referring to.” she rubbed her arm uncomfortably.

“Yes,” he finally admitted. “I do. I inquired about the tests from a trusted source. They didn't tell me directly, but I could infer from their body language.”

“That experimentation—it was hell on earth. The procedure they did to me gave me enough pain some days that I could barely stand. I'd throw up every time I woke up, even in the middle of the night. But every day they forced me to fight. To launch magic attacks at their soldiers when they could kill me in two hits. And if my results weren't good enough they'd threaten to redo the procedure. They did a few times—but in smaller doses.”

Jeritza stomach folded together as she described her experiences, vividly picturing what it would be like to be in her place; only just understand the gravity of what he initially dismissed as “simple testing”.

“Fortunately,” she said bitterness having encapsulated her voice, “One day I was finally good enough. My second crest had manifested, according to their experts. And they left, happy their testing rat had passed their trial, and never returned again. But I wasn't ready to just let them leave like that.”

“I wasn't the only one. Every child in House Ordelia had to undergo testing, and every child was my family. Even if I didn't know them well before the mages came, we grew closer together as we promised to survive.” She paused to catch her breath, her words hitching in her throat. “After they left, I was the only one who kept the promise.” Heavy sadness crept into her voice. “All that pain only to die in the end. And the loss my parents must have felt being powerless to stop all of us from participating in these deadly trials.”

Jeritza could feel the Death Knight whispering his ear, telling him to kill those who sentenced those kids to their coffins. He suppressed the urge, unsettled that the Death Knight—for once—was moved by the cause of another.

“So, I was going to stop them. Forever.” the last word rumbled in her chest. “If they had created such a powerful weapon, might as well use it to enact vengeance for my relatives who couldn't. Countless lives would be lost, but it wouldn't matter, the death toll was already high. I was lost in that 'unspeakable fury' you mentioned back then. One night I thought I should leave to enact my mission, and less than a few hours later I was sneaking out my bedroom window.”

Lysithea turned to face him before continuing, her bubblegum pink eyes starting into his darkened soul. “But there was one difference between you and I. As I threw open my window, my parents saw me. They asked where I was going, and I honestly answered them that I was going to get justice for our fallen family; thinking they would be proud of me. They weren't.” She shook her head. “They told me that my violence would be meaningless. No matter how many people I killed, it wouldn't bring my siblings back to life, and only cause more families to experience the pain of losing a loved one.”

She straightened up before delivering her final message, “They said I should try and be the best person I could be with the rest of my life. And if I were to use violence, it should be to help others from going through the tragedy I experienced. You've never mentioned your parents or family, so I don't think anyone was there to stop you spiralling into a monster. So, if there is a Jeritza down there—a soldier who likes sweets, a human—I want to be like my parents and stop the demons from taking over.”

Jeritza was taken aback. No stranger had ever extended such kindness to him. Well, they extended it not knowing of the devil lying beneath. Yet, despite all of this, the person he thought hated him the most had extended a hand across the table. It touched his heart in a way nothing else had.

Before he gave an answer, _She deserves a bit more of the truth_, he figured. “The one who raised me, my birth father, was not a good man. He was solely focused on maintaining his noble status by producing children with crests.”

Anger lit aflame once again on Lysithea's face, and her hand began to retreat back into the shadows.

“I never considered him family.” he quickly added to halt her action. “So...if you are willing to extend your hand, I will try to take it, as firmly as I can.” His ungloved hand met hers to shake in agreement. “Your parents seem like kind people.”

Lysithea quickly relinquished her hand as respectfully as she could, the light across her face having a bit more of a reddish hue. “Thanks. They are.”

“Are you going to eat the rest of your cake?” Jeritza gestured to her forgotten slice.

“Yes.” She defensively moved the plate towards her. “The cook's frosting is the most delectable I've experienced during wartime. If you want it, you'd have to fight me for it.”  
  


“I thought you said violence should only be used to help others.”

“It's sweet-defense.”

For the first time in a long while, Jeritza smirked in amusement at something other than destruction and death.

XXX

After the war was over, Jeritza threw himself into the fight to destroy Those Who Slither in the Dark with Lysithea standing right by his side. Once the remains were fully vanquished, Lysithea returned to spend the rest of her shortened life living with her parents, now as commoners. She believed she would go alone when she found Jeritza had beat her to her parent's house, asking if he could meet the people he'd heard so much about. They lived in that house for the rest of her life baking sweets, and the Death Knight never again reared his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! I've finally finished my first fic and hopefully done justice for the support we were robbed from.
> 
> And I may regret this later, but should I go for Round 2 and write a Jeritza and Manuela support?? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment.


End file.
